Yeah, I am not sure about time travel. I don't think it's possible really... although this is a game, don't we want to make it as realistic as possible, althought there are no aliens on mars, but you know, science usually proves itself wrong. Unless there is a strong case for why there should be time travel, then why should we put it in? I agree that we should work around it.

XCOM2 takes place in like 2040 or something. It ends pretty much the same way. You get to the main hidden base, work your way to the bottom and kill the main controlling guy (not a Brain though, as I recall a sleeping Octopus).

Maybe it could just be an alternate history. In this case the Brain on Mars is prudent enough to wake The Eternal Dreamer, to gee 'im some hep.

Hmmm,how about one that takes place on a planet besides earth?I like the idea of Mars,that way you could craft a side story about the civilisation that was lost to the aliens that used to live there.In Apocalypse it stated that alot of the aliens were controlled by microbes,maybe that's how the mars cities wre captured.I wonder if those microbes would still be there,and if they can capture humans...
Oh,and along these lines I think a name like X-Com:The Awakining would be good,if they were to disturb the micro species.Of coursed infected humans wouldn't be the only enemy,plot line could be something like the microbes were created by another alien species (maybe even the ones that used to live there),got lose started turning against there creators.A galactic society has been looking for the last of the disease to terminate it for some time,and recent experiments on Mars attract there attention.They assume all Human are "infected",and wage a war.
So what do you think?

I think we're thinnking of some kind of XCOM1/XCOM2 combo maybe some Apocalypse stuff can be thrown in too. I know I had an idea to make the air combat more complicated so people could play pilots instead of soldiers if they wanted, this would combine XCOM 4 stuff.

umm... I know i should be working on the threads margant told me to work on, but i couldn't help it.

I, for one think that the story of x-com3 isn't really very creative, so I propose that we forget that that timeline EVER existed. (well except for the gameplay ideas we could get from it, it does have the most interesting one in that respect.)

X-com 1 and 2, have better storylines since it involves things that we can relate to, but those are not flawless as well. Why, for example, didn't the aliens just capture our tiny little planet when we were still in our fledgeling years? Could've been easier for an advanced civilization to just drop in when we were still scratching sticks with stones than wait for a time when we could just blow the damn planet up with nukes. (hmm, why DIDN'T we just use nukes in the first war??? Heck of a lot easier to just blow mars up.)

Or maybe they have one of those ultra suction gadgets like in Mars attacks? heheh.

I propose that we create a story in which the development of us humans is integral to the meanies, and one that doesn't include iffy stuff like time manipulation (as stated above), intergalactic associations, and great great precursor races. Let's just stick to what we really know, and things that we have in our planet. (ex: pyramids, nazca plains, standing stones, sphinxs, etc.) This will give the game a sense of well-grounded realism, which will buffer the out-of-this-world things we will add like the techs and aliens.

** It is quite doubtful that there is life on Mars. I personally think that it could be some farther planet (say in a different galaxy, maybe). And becuase of that we can take the year to start from 2100 (most of the space forecasts are placing this date as the "space era" where your spaceships are crousing the space and finding stuff).

Altho it would be easier to copy the idea from XCOM1-2 however we might run into copyright issues. So chances are we might have to rewrite the story, then why not be a little more realistic?

p.s. for any of you who did not see a nice alien movie - see movie THE CONTACT. Which is very real in laws of physics and etc.

There is still alien invasion, probes flying into the Earth, first contact, first suprise about aliens when they start the slaughter and so on. Developing these events year by year and making them interesting is the main part of storywriting.

Oh okay, so we treat all the stuff like that big autonomous brain in mars and the underwater aliens as though they didn't exist? (since we wouldn't be very surprised if another alien came along and we already knew aliens existed.)

I am guessing there are 2 options
1. Take off before the XCOM1 and 2 (completely new plot)
2. Start somewhere after XCOM1 and 2 invasions. (continuation)
3. Start in the middle of the XCOM1 and XCOM2 invasions (reversing the original story into whatever we want)

I think (personally) 1 is more fun and less copyright issues. But I can say for all of us, so I say lets vote.

WHAT DO U THINK PEOPLE - lets get 10 votes and whichever side is greater wins.

My idea on irc was to have the story be that the first invasion (X-Com 1) was sucessful. The aliens have closed x-com due to lack of support by the countries and as it says, we (each country) are forced to deal with the alien menace on our own terms. So all the countries are taken over by the aliens, and now we control little resistence groups fighting. Something like that.

Oh, and about the aliens from x-com 2, we can just have them start to wake up at that time, say maybe it was what the "mars" aliens were tryinr to do was to find the activation spot to wake the other aliens (sorry, this might conflict with x-com tftd's story, just tell me if it does), and then we could have them ??? join sides... Well, sorta food for thought.

I have an idea. SInce the scientists are saying that there was life on Mars a long time ago... I say we can do 2 cool but separate plots :

1. Have alien come from outer space (say other galaxy)
2. Have alien waking up from the deep ocean holes that they made themselves with their ships trying to escape from the historical Mars meteor shower a long time ago.

And altho the 2 races of alience maybe unconnected their can still be relatives since the once from outer galaxy are the ones that escaped from Mars there and Earth deep ocean alience are the ones from escaped to Earth.

I think this plot makes some sence.

Hence we can incorporate both plots into the Xenocide plot which would make it realistic and deep enough to leave no contradictions like : "what the heck is that? "

The sectoid's home planet has been destroyed/conquered by the uber-aliens; the sectoids then fled to find another planet far away... Earth.

From their previous studies of Earth history they see that the humans are a destructive race who wage war on themselves, they don't even consider the possiblility of bargaining with the humans and thats why they simply attack.

Maybe once the big-brain thing is destroyed on mars the surviving aliens realise that humans are capable of working together and so they explain their story to Earth, eventually the two races are able to make some sort of tenuous agreement, the aliens settle on certain areas of Earth and at first the two races are a bit unstable but eventually they learn to trust each other... just in time for the arrival of the uber-aliens who have come to Earth to wipe out the last of the sectoids...

Anyway, I made that up as I went along and now that I read it it sounds quite crappy... bleh, nevermind...

It may be wise to first consider where you want a new story to go before you decide how you want it to get there. The concept of "killing the queen bee" makes for a pretty lame story, but I can't see a reasonable alternative way to finish the game that stays true to the spirit of X-Com's missions. If you want to allow Earth to overcome the alien's overwhelming material and technological advantages, it isn't really X-Com anymore.

And for those of you advocating integrating a Xenocide storyline into the current "X-Com canon"... geez, just how many alien brains are there? I think Starship Troopers is the only other sci-fi story with so many alien hive minds.

The old story for X-Com may sound like something out of a B-movie (condolences to Heinlein), but it does the its job of holding the aspects of gameplay together in a coherent fashion. I say touch up any of the particularly painful aspects of it and toss it into the game. Anything else threatens to betray the soul of the game. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you were playing a Superhuman game and thought, "Gee, researching Heavy Plasma is so boring. I sure wish I needed to do an autopsy on one of the corpses to advance X-Com's understanding of the alien invasion."?

Hmm... well you have point there JustBen. I don't think the story of x-com should be a continuation of x-com1 and/or 2 either, since according to that timeline we already know how to control every single force of nature. WE COULD BE THE UBER-ALIENS! What I think would be a better idea is a new timeline altogether. Just like doing x-com for the very first time, only changing a few aspects of the storyline. This would eliminate all the nasty problems we're having with inconsistencies. And like I said before, we could have just nuked mars to pieces!

It may be wise to first consider where you want a new story to go before you decide how you want it to get there. The concept of "killing the queen bee" makes for a pretty lame story, but I can't see a reasonable alternative way to finish the game that stays true to the spirit of X-Com's missions. If you want to allow Earth to overcome the alien's overwhelming material and technological advantages, it isn't really X-Com anymore.

And for those of you advocating integrating a Xenocide storyline into the current "X-Com canon"... geez, just how many alien brains are there? I think Starship Troopers is the only other sci-fi story with so many alien hive minds.

The old story for X-Com may sound like something out of a B-movie (condolences to Heinlein), but it does the its job of holding the aspects of gameplay together in a coherent fashion. I say touch up any of the particularly painful aspects of it and toss it into the game. Anything else threatens to betray the soul of the game. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you were playing a Superhuman game and thought, "Gee, researching Heavy Plasma is so boring. I sure wish I needed to do an autopsy on one of the corpses to advance X-Com's understanding of the alien invasion."?

--Ben

gameplay is more important than storyline ... Like for the multiplayer mode the game really never ends. In a multiplayer mode the suggested gameplay is like the old BBS Door game Legend of the Red Dragon. There a player (this case a team) can beat the big baddie but the game goes on for the next player (or group) to beat the big boss. After a team beats the big boss in a multiplayer game you just start them over from scratch and add it to the news that they won. This is good because for many people the most fun part of X-Com is the first few months. Also the weaker team will become the stronger team later on and will get revenge Anyways only the history leading up to the game is important in multiplayer.. The loop part of the game makes for a very lame story line but hey who would even notice?

There are three reasons I liked x-com. The tech tree coz I'm a sci-fi addict, the alien autopsies/biopsies coz I'm just plain wierd, and the ufos coz I was raised by aliens. All those are dependent on the storyline, so the storyline is pretty important to me. Plus, a good storyline is always a big plus in a game, since it has a way of taking the player INTO the game, not just enjoying beating stuff but also immersing him/her. I don't mean it has to be a novel story, or something that's gonna change the world and breed philosophers, it just needs to explain whatever the heck pops up in the game and develop the plot, and it should do so flawlessly. (actually I cant imagine playing x-com with just an infinite number of missions and all of them occuring under the same circumstances.)

ok read the above thread. It is discussion about a multiplayer mode me, Peter and Warlord developed. It has a good story line but the storyline is not what you notice when you play Or it is mainly the background storyline that is important.

I guess it's to each his own in this topic. We all pretty much have different things we like in our games, and everyone has an opinion about how a game should be. Anyway, just giving my thoughts on the matter.

well thats why you can make diffrent modes of gameplay. still I don't think things you get via research are really a story line. To me just interesting alien info. I think that X-Com really has a thin story line and people tend to make up the story in their minds.

Yeah, the first and second x-com relied on what people already knew about aliens (or at least what they think they knew.) to shape the storyline. But when I say storyline, I mean the things that happened before, leading to the game. (ie, the date, circumstances of the attack) I don't think that the story you play in the game itself is too important in an x-com type game either, but it would be nice if we can add it.

So let someone come up with the story and we all are going to modify it to our likes and dislikes : Something like

In 2039 our America's inter-galactic radar has detected an unknown object, speeding faster then meteorite coming towards Earth. With the event happening so fast noone was able to stop this alien ship from falling into Atlantic.
... blah blah
The devastation started in Asia as the alien terrorists and mutated humanoids were killing and destorying anything that moved, constantly imporving their gene-codes so that they can reach perfection....

With the council of 154 goverments a new agency (heck it maybe UN itself) was esatblished, called ___(fill here) to remove the alien virus from mother Earth.

SCENARIO FOLLOWS :

----------------------------------
please continue and modify while you can. I am still thinking we need reaserch tree and all the names for units and stuff becuase due to the Hasbro's copyright we cant take their own unless allowed to.

I think that each mode should just give a general description like how we described the Fight For Freedom mode. As far as storyline goes I think it is a mistake to get into heavy details here. For each of us X-Com means something else and we basically have made up our own storyline in our heads. That's the way I like it. It is best to let the player imagine the storyline using the things he knows from UFO lore to make it up in his mind. Each of us can ruin the story for the other by telling our version. And the background info you do give the less describtive the better. No offense but some of us roll our eyes and stop reading when we see things like inter-galactic radar. Also my view of the things the aliens should have been around at least since the time when those cheesy black and white UFO movies first started coming out. I think we want to make a general timelime that include the origins of the aliens and so forth and then include X-Com 1 and from that point on the timeline can alternate a bit. Eitherway I know for each of us X-Com is something diffrent some like take it real serious. Me I see it as one of those old cheap holywood movies thinking back at the cheesy Terror From The Deep title and remebering the silly cartoon intro of X-Com 1. Heh I still want an intro made for the fight for freedom mode with Ted being on the news and behind him a little screen showing UFO's and saying Fight For Freedom.

I kinda like the idea of integrating what we already know about aliens into the storyline, like extra-terrestrial evidence from waaaaaaay back. It seems that even from as early as the middle ages, UFO's have been visiting us. (We could consider this as scouting parties for a larger invasion force.) Or, if you wanna get critical, the bible offers a passage VERY descriptive passage about aliens. I think you can find that in Eziekel, but I'm not too sure. (it's about spheres coming from the heavens and wierd beings coming out.)

So, if we take UFO's as real, the most logical conclusion would be that they are gathering information about our race, and they've been doing so for quite a while. I personally believe that their intentions are not hostile, but we can use this in our story.

I dunno, should we follow a independence day type background story? (aliens invading for resources) An Earth: Final Conflict story? (aliens invading because their race is slowly fading into oblivion and they need to find a cure and somehow we are part of the cure) Or a Borg story? (WE ARE BORG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. YOUR UNIQUENESS WILL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN.) kinda like what margant said, aliens seeking perfection through assimilation. I think these are the simplest storylines we can get, and personally I like a bit more color in my stories, but if we pursue what gangsta says, like making the story very very simple, I think these would be the main lines we should pursue. (But I still say go for the pulitzer prize. :alienlol: )

problem is you can ruin x-com for someone else by telling them that kinda stuff. Like I said we all have diffrent visions of what x-com is in our heads. It's like Hemingway's philosophy that you actually tell more by saying less. The more you describe things to a person the less they imagine.

Hm .. point taken.
Altho I am still thinking if there can be legal issues in this.

I am thinking if it is possible to create X-COm with the facts that we can research, because in the truth WE CANT REALLY CALL GAME "XCOM-xxx".

So fine with me if you take 1970's or whenerver there was the UFO crase which I personally add to the SCI-FI movie craze's side effects as the new movie effects were made people started looking out for new unusual effects in the UFO kinda areas. Heck, you can even go as deep as the beginning, like Devatar is saying - aliens had visited us before, but now they have come for pay back (return on investment, ).

So group voting can deal with this issue, Single story writing surely wont becuase we have our own images in our heads, like gansta said and I agree.

Personally i liked all three of the games. I have a new idea that could just follow the timeline, without being "just X-COM nr. 4".

Note: I dislike attack games and personally like defensive games much better (e.a. i want to be the good guy).

But this new idea is like this:

After we have defended ourselves in X-com 1,2,3. We have a nice world everybody happy -> lot of f***ing around -> babyboom. And we have screwed our natural resources.
A war between different countries is on hand to survive. But then the UN (or whatever) signs a peace treaty among countries to find and raid another planet, to start a new earth.

We know that there are aliens and start our search for that new world. (research etc.) Then we arrive and start conquering the alien home world -> kill them all -> etc.

You could have big starships (like bases in X-com 1,2,3) that engage thee attack, well be creative.

The different countries on earth that are in the peacetreaty slowly change into enemies (and your funding starts to shrink), so you got to keep them friendly (like the companies in X-com 3 or the countries in X-com 1,2). There are two options what to do with those countries: 1. Just less funding, 2. Fight against them as well (boring?)

To make money, you can build transport vessels which bring goodies to earth and sell them there, to let earth last al little longer and your "employers" happy. Also goodies could become less valuable as more countries tend to leave the peace treaty.

Wow, just made all this up whuile i was reading your ideas and typing this. Maybe you all hate the idea or like it. I wouldn't say it is so bas, because it's different from the other games (offensive instead of defensive). But it could perfectly fit into the series.

Hm .. point taken.Altho I am still thinking if there can be legal issues in this.

I am thinking if it is possible to create X-COm with the facts that we can research, because in the truth WE CANT REALLY CALL GAME "XCOM-xxx".

So fine with me if you take 1970's or whenerver there was the UFO crase which I personally add to the SCI-FI movie craze's side effects as the new movie effects were made people started looking out for new unusual effects in the UFO kinda areas. Heck, you can even go as deep as the beginning, like Devatar is saying - aliens had visited us before, but now they have come for pay back (return on investment, ).

So group voting can deal with this issue, Single story writing surely wont becuase we have our own images in our heads, like gansta said and I agree.

Well me and RK really are in favor of dropping the X-Com part of the name and just using Xenocide. I think it is safest legally but there some resistance here by other non lawyer members so right now it's still there.

What if you took the premise behind X-Com 1 and then just pulled out any indications of alien motive? I don't mean to suggest that there be no reason for the alien invasion, but that it is simply beyond the ability of X-Com to determine what they are. You can still have freaky alien autopsies and anatomy, but never tie it together in an obviously coherent fashion. This would mean that all the "alien mission" stuff would have to be trashed (an unfortunate side effect -- anyone want to suggest a fix to that?), but who interrogates engineers anyway?

That seems like the most diplomatic solution of them all. We don't irritate any lawyers from the game's original producer. We only include the story elements that everyone agrees on -- namely, (1) the aliens want to kill us, and (2) we want to kill aliens.

I don't know... A decent background story would add appeal to the game. And if we don't put a motive for the aliens, people would think we were too lazy to develop a storyline and just made the game an uncreative copy of x-com1.

I think the convention when it comes to the storyline is that we just create a whole new story altogether, to avoid lawsuits and for additional bragging rights.

Besides, don't you just adore reading all the ideas popping up in people's heads?

I agree to the fact that there should be a decent story behind the game. (Still like my own story).

Second: if somebody contacts the game makers and explains them of your intent. Say it is non-commercial etc... They are having problems releasing a new game don't they?? Maybe they like the idea.
And besides, as long as X-com isn't in the name, than they don't have the exclusive right to an alien attack story, because 50% of all SF movies are the same.....

I was watching a scientific theory on TV and they were discussing a nice theory of parallel worlds that exists between our 3dimentional into 4dimentional and etc (but thats not the main point).
They trace Egypt pyramids to be the portals into and out of the other worlds going as far back as the before BC time. The creatures (aliens) coming from that world were experimenting in creating humans (thats how u see humans with animal heads on the walls of the pyramids and etc).

So this theory is cool and realistic and I am sure there is a nice and sleek way to incorporate it into our story.

I was watching a scientific theory on TV and they were discussing a nice theory of parallel worlds that exists between our 3dimentional into 4dimentional and etc (but thats not the main point).They trace Egypt pyramids to be the portals into and out of the other worlds going as far back as the before BC time. The creatures (aliens) coming from that world were experimenting in creating humans (thats how u see humans with animal heads on the walls of the pyramids and etc).

So this theory is cool and realistic and I am sure there is a nice and sleek way to incorporate it into our story.

What do u guys think?? :alienmad: :alienmad: :alienmad:

Hey dude, thats way too crazy for me.... What have you been drinking in Xmas ....

The multiverse theory is pretty interesting, and personally I would like to see something like that implemented in the game. (that's the exact story used in Stargate)

Most of us here, however, have explictly voiced their preference for a much simpler storyline.

But if anyone wants to spice up the storyline, I say GO BABY GO!!!

We should put up the most promising story ideas, then just vote on it. Still, I believe that RK and the other programmers should have the final word, though.

We shouldn't go so far as trifle with dimensionality, though. (ex: We four dimensional beings versus five dimensionals.) This would have apocalyptic consequences. (Which is too long and too boring for most people so tell me if you want me to elaborate.)

How's this:
Two alien empires beat the crap out of each other, enslave other aliens to do their bidding, and hurt people. After a few million years they wipe each other out save for a few forgotten outposts, Cydonia being one of them. The aliens on Mars, obliviousof the fact that the war's over, and intent on carring out their final orders, invade earth.
Kinda like how they found those lost Japanesse outposts who thought WWII was still going on in the '70s(or whenever). That's just my idea... Any ways... Merry New Year!

I'm pretty fond of Dean's idea up there. It has a simple elegance to it. It doesn't interfere with any existing storyline. And (with all deference to the creative ideas expressed above), the over-elaborate stories just seem... well... too elaborate. This is bound to happen whenever you try to construct something around a set system that is inflexible -- you end up sounding like a Star Wars plot-continuity apologist.

But I can't sneak away without poking a hole in someone's idea -- if the aliens themselves don't know that "The War" is over and all that, how is mankind supposed to figure it out?

Ok, I was in the mood to sign up, so it's the same Dean Franz, but no, that's not my real name( I wish).
But I was thinking, and this is in line with the play UFO and TFTD at the same time thingy. The TFTD aliens are the other side. They show/wake up, think your with the UFO aliens, and proceed to attack you. They know the war is over, but they've got a grudge to settle, cause Muton-34342 killed Lobsterman-74533, who was Enternal Dreamer's things favorite. Or somthing to that effect. You find out about the war during the UFO portion, and that it's over during the TFTD portion. Again, this is just what I've been thinking about.

Actually, I was thinking of a less accidental story. I dunno, mistaken identity and misinformation just makes for a pretty thin storyline in my book. (Does not appeal to my sense of justice. Millions of sentients dying just because of a mistake.)

Besides, how can the aliens not know if the war is over? The Grays supposedly have this commonality through which they are empathic, if not telepathic, to each other. They can use this to communicate galaxies apart. (Like in Earth: Final Conflict)

I prefer that the aliens have a real motive, and this motive is the driving force for their attack. (This way we can REALLY hate them. )

Sorry I can't give more input, my internet's busted and I'm in an internet cafe. Promise to give more input when it's up!

I don't know... A decent background story would add appeal to the game. And if we don't put a motive for the aliens, people would think we were too lazy to develop a storyline and just made the game an uncreative copy of x-com1.

I think the convention when it comes to the storyline is that we just create a whole new story altogether, to avoid lawsuits and for additional bragging rights.

Besides, don't you just adore reading all the ideas popping up in people's heads?

but everyone already has a bunch of motivies in their minds ... .anyway as for the motives remebering discussions here with stewy and timil months ago I suggested that we like give each alien base a purpose. things like climate control, atmosphere control and so forth. You can give the aliens a purpose without even saying anything if ya do it smart. Like I said we each already have a bunch of purposes in our head for the aliens and most of them are very simular.